Huang family gives Vanderbilt $75 million for San Francisco arts college
The Nvidia CEO and his wife are funding a new art, architecture and design college on the site of the closing California College of the Arts.
By Daniel Okafor · Business Editor
3 min read
Jensen Huang and his wife, Lori, are giving Vanderbilt University $75 million to create an art, architecture and design college in San Francisco, Vanderbilt announced. The donation ties one of the leading figures in artificial intelligence hardware to a new school built around the meeting point of technology and the arts.
The gift, which still needs approval, would establish the Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang College of Art, Architecture and Design, according to Vanderbilt. The university said the college is planned as a center for artists, designers and architects working with advanced technology, studio training, design labs, business skills and technical fluency.
Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, framed the donation as a bet on the role of creative disciplines in directing technology. “Technology expands what we can build. Art and design determine why we build it,” Huang said in a Vanderbilt statement. “Together they shape civilization.”
Vanderbilt said the Huang gift has helped draw more than $25 million in additional commitments, bringing the current investment in the project above $100 million. The San Francisco campus will occupy the site of the California College of the Arts, a 119-year-old institution expected to graduate its final class in 2027.
Archinect has reported that CCA is closing after years of enrollment pressure, and the San Francisco Chronicle has reported the school faced a deficit of about $20 million. The San Francisco Standard reported that Huang had previously supported CCA before its closure plans, and said his combined giving to CCA and Vanderbilt is approaching $97.5 million.
The Standard reported that the Vanderbilt donation is Huang’s largest gift to a university. Oregon State University, Huang’s alma mater, announced in 2022 that Huang and his wife had given more than $50 million to help launch a research center there.
Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier said the San Francisco location puts the new college near major technology companies and creative industries. “This college, together with additional academic programming under development, will prepare creative leaders to shape culture, industries and communities in San Francisco’s thriving economy, nationally and around the world,” Diermeier said in Vanderbilt’s announcement.
The project is part of a broader push by Vanderbilt beyond its Nashville base. The university has announced a New York City campus opening this fall, plans for a graduate campus in West Palm Beach and a quantum-computing institute in Chattanooga.
The Chronicle of Higher Education has described Vanderbilt’s expansion as a contrast with cost-cutting at other universities. Brendan Cantwell, a Michigan State University professor of educational administration, told the Chronicle that Vanderbilt appears to see an opening to distinguish itself nationally.
The San Francisco plan has also raised concerns among people connected to CCA. KQED reported that CCA faculty and staff are not promised jobs at Vanderbilt, and that current CCA students are not guaranteed admission to the new program.
Diermeier told CBS News that students who want to transfer to Vanderbilt may have an opportunity to do so, while adding that Vanderbilt is “not absorbing CCA in any way.” Vanderbilt has said it will preserve parts of CCA’s history through a CCA Institute inside the new college, continue the Wattis Institute gallery and manage the school’s archives.
Axios described the loss of CCA as a blow to a Bay Area arts community facing funding cuts and displacement linked to the AI boom. CCA has been the Bay Area’s last private art and design school, according to Fortune.
The gift follows another recent act of philanthropy by Huang. Fortune reported that he donated one of his black leather jackets for an auction that raised nearly $1 million for the Edge Institute, a nonprofit that brings people from technology, science, culture and society into temporary communities for collaborative projects.
This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.